Chen WH, Cai CF, Gao BZ, Hong WS, Xu YZ, Cai WJ. Visual screening and efficacy evaluation of high-performance fluorescent probe DAF-FM in esophagitis cancer transformation. World J Gastrointest Surg 2025; 17(12): 110617 [DOI: 10.4240/wjgs.v17.i12.110617]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Wen-Jie Cai, Chief Physician, Department of Radiation Oncology, Quanzhou First Hospital Affiliated to Fujian Medical University, No. 248-252 East Street, Quanzhou 362002, Fujian Province, China. caiwj2001@126.com
Research Domain of This Article
Oncology
Article-Type of This Article
Basic Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Dec 27, 2025 (publication date) through Dec 25, 2025
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Journal Information of This Article
Publication Name
World Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery
ISSN
1948-9366
Publisher of This Article
Baishideng Publishing Group Inc, 7041 Koll Center Parkway, Suite 160, Pleasanton, CA 94566, USA
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Chen WH, Cai CF, Gao BZ, Hong WS, Xu YZ, Cai WJ. Visual screening and efficacy evaluation of high-performance fluorescent probe DAF-FM in esophagitis cancer transformation. World J Gastrointest Surg 2025; 17(12): 110617 [DOI: 10.4240/wjgs.v17.i12.110617]
Wan-Hua Chen, Ying-Zhi Xu, Department of Clinical Laboratory, Quanzhou First Hospital Affiliated to Fujian Medical University, Quanzhou 362002, Fujian Province, China
Cheng-Feng Cai, Department of Radiography, Ningxia Medical University, Yinchuan 750004, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, China
Bing-Zhong Gao, Wen-Jie Cai, Department of Radiation Oncology, Quanzhou First Hospital Affiliated to Fujian Medical University, Quanzhou 362002, Fujian Province, China
Wen-Shan Hong, Department of Surgical Oncology, Quanzhou First Hospital Affiliated to Fujian Medical University, Quanzhou 362002, Fujian Province, China
Author contributions: Chen WH proposed the overall research goal and designed the research plan and model design; Chen WH, Cai CF and Gao BZ conducted the feasibility analysis, review, and supervision of the experiment; Chen WH and Hong WS conducted statistical processing and analysis of the data; Chen WH and Xu YZ were responsible for writing the first draft of the paper; Chen WH and Cai WJ were responsible for the review, revision, and quality control of the paper; all authors approved the final draft of the paper.
Supported by Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province, No. 2023J011787; and Quanzhou Science and Technology Program Project, No. 2025QZC02DW.
Institutional animal care and use committee statement: The Institutional Animal Care, Ethics, and Use Committees of Huaqiao University School of Medicine, approved this study (No. A2025078).
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
ARRIVE guidelines statement: The authors have read the ARRIVE guidelines, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the ARRIVE guidelines.
Data sharing statement: The datasets generated and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Wen-Jie Cai, Chief Physician, Department of Radiation Oncology, Quanzhou First Hospital Affiliated to Fujian Medical University, No. 248-252 East Street, Quanzhou 362002, Fujian Province, China. caiwj2001@126.com
Received: August 1, 2025 Revised: September 12, 2025 Accepted: October 17, 2025 Published online: December 27, 2025 Processing time: 145 Days and 18.4 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: This study systematically evaluated the high-performance fluorescent probe DAF-FM for visual screening and efficacy assessment of esophagitis-to-cancer transformation. DAF-FM exhibited concentration-dependent and time-dependent fluorescence responses to nitric oxide (NO), targeted lysosomes specifically (Pearson coefficient = 0.82 ± 0.03), and had low cytotoxicity (82.3% ± 4.1% cell viability at 50 μM). In Sprague-Dawley rat esophagitis cancer models, DAF-FM monitored NO changes dynamically, with results positively correlated to tumor volume (R² = 0.87) post 5-fluorouracil/radiotherapy. Clinically, it outperformed endoscopic biopsy (sensitivity: 92.5% vs 78.3%) and shortened detection time (30 minutes vs 48 hours). Mechanistically, NO regulates carcinogenesis via the nuclear factor-kappa B pathway, clarifying DAF-FM’s molecular logic in reflecting transformation stages.
